sylphid

So I would like to buy some new glasses. Mine are going to fall apart eventually, and I'd rather have a new pair before it happens so I'm not rendered useless and blind.

Where is a good place to buy glasses?

It ends up that my previously reported technical woes were due to a spontaneously-failing power supply. Oh well, as fun as it might have been to buy a new computer, I'm happy enough to not spend the money. However, the backup power supply I have swapped in sounds like a vacuum cleaner, and is not appropriate for constant use in a living room. Any suggestions for a very quiet power supply?

Last night I took some time out to install a new hard drive in my server. After ripping out some components and putting some others in, I hit the power button and.... nothing. Well, the power supply kicked in, I could hear the hard drives start up, and the ethernet card LEDs flashed, but nothing showed up on the monitor, and no booting happened. After cursing a bit and re-seating all the components, I started it up again, and this time all I got was a short, faint high-pitched whine, then absolutely nothing but a faint smell of smoke.

At this point I'm pretty sure either the motherboard or power supply is dead. I moved the server hard drive to another computer that was waiting to be donated to the VSB. It's providing a temporary workaround, but the computer is far too noisy to be left running in the living room. If I can't revive the old server I'll have to get something new.

All this is a long preamble to my main question: Have any of you looked at small form-factor PCs? I'm thinking of getting this.

I had a great weekend:

Thursday: Skip out on work early to go to the dentist (name: Dr. Bonbon Hu. Yes, really). Caitlin knows I'm a dentist wimp, so while I'm out she cooks me a fantastic meal to make me feel better. Aw, shucks, I'm so lucky.

Friday: Skipped out on work early to go ride my bike at Critical Mass. It was a pretty big turnout for February (80 people? I'm not very good at crowd estimation), and the ride was very fun and positive. The temperature dropped pretty drastically after 7, by the time we got home my feet were completely numb. Caitlin has bought me feet-warming neoprene bike booties, hopefully this judicious application of technology and petrochemicals will let me bike more in the sub-zero.

Saturday: Fuimos a la classe Español por la tarde, después por la noche fuimos a la VSO -- ¡tuvimos boletos libres de la trabajo de Caitlin, que suerte! El premero concierto se llamó "The Sorceror's Apprentice", claro un concierto muy famosa. Después, oímos un nuevo concierto se llama "Fugitive Colours", para un músico de Vancouver que trabaja por la VSO. Me gusta este concierto porque fue interesante y un cambio, pero pienso que fue demasiado moderno. Después del concierto, fuimos a un nueva tienda de chocolate se llama "Chocoatl", en Yaletown. He leído de esta tienda en eGullet.com. A Caitlin le gusta la cocoa y ella quiso ir. La tienda es muy interesante, los dueños son amistoso y la cocoa es muy, muy bueno. ¡Uno de los dueños es de México, y charlamos con él en Español!

Sunday: Did some chores, ate a lot of perogies, and played video games. Now THAT is a good day. Apparently I'm supposed to get up at 6am tomorrow, so I should probably go to sleep...

We're going to CM tonight. Bundle up and join us!

The weather is supposed to turn to rain tomorrow, does anyone want to make the most of the sun and go biking today?

... or, do anything? Caitlin has to study all day and I have no plans.

Though I doubt any of you will care, the year is set to end (and next year begin!) with quite the musical bang, crossing the full spectrum of ridiculous musical genres I enjoy:

• Headwater, Vancouver's finest bluegrass band, is playing at Cafe Deux Soleils tomorrow night (Friday).


• The Advantage, Planet Earth's second-best NES cover band, is playing at the Railway Club on January 5th.


• Secret Chiefs 3 is playing at Richards on Richards on January 8th. Opening is Bend Sinister (surprisingly good?) and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (alternates rapidly between great and unbearable).

I just finished Underworld, which had some of the most gorgeous writing I've ever read, tragically arranged in a particularly infuriating manner. It would have been a fantastic book if his editor had been more agressive in pruning, and had forced him to arrange things chronologically.

So, I have nothing to read. If I don't have a book to read on my way to Surrey I will fly into an uncontrollable rage.

What should I read? What's your favourite book? What's your guilty reading pleasure? I have already plundered the tab reading list, and have mostly read everything on there I'm interested in.

The week's Escapist is about Women in Games. Possibly most interesting is a dissection of gaming and gender from the view of evolutionary psychology:

"If we were to whisk a young hunter-gatherer male out of the remote past into the present, dress him up in whatever the current uniform of youth happens to be and plunk him down in front of a videogame console, what kind of entertainment would he prefer? Something that he is optimized for, of course. It would be something in which he throws rocks powerfully and accurately at prey. Guns do that very well. He would also want to track his prey over a large spatial map, involving all manner of interesting problems in spatial analysis. Lastly, he'd want something challenging his ability to analyze and anticipate prey behavior. Golly gee, sounds just like a shooter, doesn't it?"

It's certainly been one hell of a week, let's recap:

• Dead Can Dance: Amazingly awesome. Ten years since their last tour, and they sounded better than ever.


• Seattle: It's kind of like Vancouver, but not as good. One thing we really noticed is the absolutely huge number of "crazy" homeless people in the city, way more than here.


• Amtrak: Taking the train anywhere is great, but I now understand why Amtrak requires all those government subsidies to keep afloat: it is a terribly inefficient organization.


• Green Tortoise Hostel: Highly recommended, if you ever need to stay there.


• Camera: Broken, full of banana.


• Spanish Lessons: Fuego!


• Dog: That's right, we have temporarily adopted a dog. His name is Oscar, he is my sister-in-law's dog, she needed someone to act as foster parents for the winter. He is a great dog! No pictures yet (see above), but I will post something soon. Any of you "strange running people" want to go for a jog with us around Trout Lake this weekend?

• Pop quiz: I am going to Seattle in one week, to see a concert and celebrate my birthday. I have one free day to spend around the city. What should I do? Of note: I do not find people throwing fish through the air terribly entertaining. Apparently all the good veg restaurants are in the "University District", which seems to be Seattle's answer to "middle of nowhere". Suggestions!


• Burns Bog is on fire, and the giant purple cloud arching towards Vancouver is actually quite a pretty sight from the Skytrain


• RoboRally has been re-released, and Drexoll games has it in stock! Could this be the answer to our nation's painfully dull days and woefully boring nights?


• Apparently Los Angeles has suffered a blackout, but fear not, good citizens, it was not caused by terrorism! At least, that's the meaning I was eventually able to glean after decoding this gem of a quote from Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke: "there is no indication of any nexus to terror." I don't even think that is English.

For the first time in countless months I can say I have nothing planned for tomorrow. It is strange and kind of scary.

Anyone in a similar situation and want to hang out? Play a board game? Go for a bike ride? Do massive amounts of baking?

TOMORROW, 5:30PM at the Art Gallery, August Critical Mass!


Anyone want to go for a bike ride?

Wow, housewarming for 10 hours is exhausting.

I'm falling far, far behind on all my LJ updates. Maybe I should start posting at work. I haven't even posted about our bike trip up to Sechelt last weekend (including Exciting Tales and Lurid Photos!). That will come later.

Today we were invited out to Caitlin's grandmother's house (in Tsawwassen) for proper high tea. We decided the bus was for chumps, and that we would bike out there. After consulting shuttle timetables, we were off! Some hilights:

• Windsor/Inverness Bike Routes: Huzzah! An excellent way to get down to the Knight St. Bridge. They have some kind of strange street lamp art along Windsor that depicts the area's historic ties to the Milk Jug and Creepy Doll industries.


• Knight St. Bridge: Boooooo! Hissss!


• Richmond: We biked down Sweden Way (Ikea!), Jacombs, and Sidaway. Not bad, once you get out of the Big Box Store territory it's mostly quiet farm roads. A pleasant mix of blueberry farms, palatial houses, and gun clubs. We figured we aren't in the area often, so we took the opportunity to eat at the Que Pasa factory store on No. 5 rd. Mexitastic!


• Massey Tunnel Shuttle: The guy that runs the shuttle is awesome. Due to underestimating our own cycling prowess we waited a long time to leave. Note for future reference: it takes about an hour to go from East Van to the shuttle at a leisurely pace.


• Ladner/Tsawwassen: Eh, flat and boring.

So, for anyone who cares, as long as you're able to time the Massey Tunnel shuttle properly, it is indeed possible (and even pleasant!) to bike out to the Tsawwassen ferry.

Photos coming soon.

This weekend! Fun in the sun!

Tragically, Montague Harbour looks full (I guess they started accepting reservations for the entire backpacking/cycling area, and so now it's all taken). We have some other options:

• Dionisio, which is on the north end of Galiano, and has backpack/cyclist-only access, and no reservations, so there should be space.


• Prior Centennial (on N Pender Island) has space


• Roberts Creek or Porpoise Bay on the Sunshine Coast don't take reservations, and Porpoise Bay has a cyclists-only area that should be available.

Anyone?

Sweet Jumping Jiminey, there's just too much to talk about, and too little time.

I was in San Diego this week, running a booth at the ESRI UC, which is basically fifteen thousand sweaty GIS nerds chatting and then getting drunk. True to form, Team Safe Software managed to crash only the finest apres-conference parties, and this year we didn't even get booted out of any pubs.

The booth duty itself was chaotic beyond reason, probably because I was supposed to have a helper, but (s)he never materialized. It's nice to do something a little more social for work for a change, especially since events like this always produce some interesting characters. I was given an enthusiastic invite and offer of the free use of an apartment in Puerto Rico by the extremely Antonio Banderas-esque Hispanic Alpha Male attendee I gave a lengthy demo to. Whenever I made a particularly salient point, he would lean his tanned 6'2" frame back in his chair, stroke his chin, and exclaim in his strong Spanish accent "that es veeehhry enteresting". Despite the fact that he had seen my wedding ring, he encouraged me to "seriously, bring your girlfriend". Maybe that's some Puerto Rican thing.

Based on the assumption that Southern California is the incubator for the Trends of Tomorrow, I would encourage you all to invest in protein bar stock. You know how a regular Vancouver grocery store will have a "bread section", perhaps a quarter aisle dedicated to doughy goodness? The grocery store in downtown San Diego had a protein bar section. Seriously, I think people there must survive solely off those things. Also, high-end fast food seems to be something they have and we don't.

San Diego has an analogue to Vancouver's cheap pizza eateries, where vigorous competition has caused the price of a slice to bottom out at a revolting 93 cents, but its equivalent is in tacos. Apparently 40 American cents is the absolute lowest cost the market can bear for a taco stuffed with your choice of meat or beans, and to top it off it's served to you by an authentic Hispanic guy that doesn't speak any English through a window in what appears to be, otherwise, a blank wall. I'm not really sure how it works.

As our plane was descending into Vancouver, I couldn't help but notice that part of East Van was on fire. It was quite a spectacular sight from ten thousand feet, actually. Apparently three buildings, including a restaurant, were destroyed. Is this the untimely demise of IHoD?

The day I left for San Diego was the day that Cheap Fraser Valley Corn flooded the market (price at my local veggie store as of 9am: $1/cob, price as of 5pm: 25c/cob). I believe Saturday may be a good day to hit the old farmer's market and have ourselves a picnic. Any takers?

Tommorrow I'm taking off work to clean my apartment and fix my damn bike. Anyone want to go for a ride?

We have moved! Our new place came with a dryer, which we are giving away. It is an older General Electric. I have no idea if it works well, but it seems to make the inside hot so I'm guessing it works fine.

Do you want a dryer? Free to the first person who says 'aye' and can come pick it up in the next couple days from our new place. You are responsible for extracting the thing from our apartment, so you will need a dolly or some burly helpers.

If nobody claims it we'll offer it up on Freecycle tomorrow night.


Pictures of our new place are forthcoming. I am very, very tired.

So the last five days (since Thursday) have been taken up with New House Stuff. We took ownership of our new place on Thursday, and painted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We're now putting in new flooring (goodbye nasty carpet!) We got bamboo flooring from here, we got about a third of the place done today.
I am so totally done with renovations, tomorrow I'm going to work and it will be like a holiday.

It was a great ride. Through downtown, across some bridges, through Stanley Park, across (and back) the Lion's Gate. Flying through Stanley Park with only the whirling sounds of gears and chains instead of the the constant drone of motors was a hilight.

Here are some pictures I've found on the net. Most are from flickr, it's too hard to copy and paste them somewhere else, so you get a URL instead of a thumbnail:

We kind of filled up the Granville St bridge
Another one on the bridge
Someone who lives in a false creek apartment caught us
Sunny weather on the Burrard St. bridge
Someone who lives in a Burrard St apartment caught us turning onto Davie
Good times on the Lion's Gate

None of the pictures really manage to capture all 1200 cyclists on the road at once. We filled Howe St from the art gallery to Burrard St. Bridge.